New York City Council subpoenas Musk over AI safety — CNBC

The New York City Council in the United States has issued Elon Musk a subpoena, demanding that he or another representative of SpaceXAI testify as part of an investigation into risks associated with artificial intelligence. CNBC reports.

Purpose of the investigation

A letter from City Council Speaker Julie Menin states that the investigation is intended to assess whether rapidly emerging risks to public safety, cybersecurity, economic stability, privacy, consumers and businesses require immediate legislative action to protect New York City residents.

According to the City Council, the hearing will take place on October 5 as part of a rare meeting of the Committee of the Whole, attended by all 51 of its members. The Council's press release also stated that the hearing is being held following warnings from whistleblowers and executives in the AI industry, as well as reports of harm to government databases that, according to those reports, has already been caused by uncontrolled AI agents.

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Lawsuits concerning Grok

CNBC writes that SpaceXAI faces a number of lawsuits related to the Grok chatbot. The city of Baltimore accused the company of violating consumer protection laws and misleading consumers by presenting the Grok tool for image generation and editing as generally safe.

SpaceXAI is also a defendant in a lawsuit filed as a class action by teenagers. The plaintiffs claim that Grok created images depicting them in sexualized and degrading situations.

SpaceX, Musk's rocket company, merged with his AI company xAI in February. The combined company owns the social network X and the Grok chatbot, CNBC notes.